University orchestra plays Warren Station

<b>Special to the Daily</b>The College of Saint Benedict & Saint John's University Symphony Orchestra comes to Warren Station in Keystone for a free performance tonight. The stop is one of nine on the group's tour.

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The College of Saint Benedict (CSB) and Saint John's University (SJU) Symphony Orchestra present a program of opera overtures and dances tonight at Warren Station Center for the Performing Arts in Keystone. The stop is part of a nine-performance, four-state tour by 59 students and four faculty members, among them J. David Arnott, associate professor of music and the orchestra's conductor. "We tour like this once every four years," said Arnott, who played in the National Repertory Orchestra in Keystone in 1991 and attended school in Philadelphia, Pa. with violinist Charles Wetherbee, director of The Dercum Center. Arnott said it was Wetherbee's idea to look into playing at Warren Station."The music we have chosen is a wonderful selection of overtures and dances from the operatic repertoire," Arnott said. The group will perform "Overture to William Tell" by Gioachino Rossini; the overture and three dances from "The Bartered Bride" by Bedrich Smetana; the waltz and polonaise from "Eugene Onegin" by Peter Tchaikovsky and the overture to "Der Frieschtz" by Carl Maria von Weber. "Playing a concert nine times in a week provides a much deeper and intimate experience with the music," Arnott said of the tour and its benefit to students. "In addition, the students have a better chance to bond as friends as they spend countless hours on the bus."The College of Saint Benedict, for women, and Saint John's University, for men, are two Catholic liberal arts colleges in central Minnesota. The colleges share one academic program, and students attend classes together on both campuses.